Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 6, 2026

Quantifying Cytoskeleton Dynamics Using Differential Dynamic Microscopy
Published on: June 15, 2022
A stellar dynamical mass measurement of an inactive black hole at redshift 2
Andrew B Newman1,2, Meng Gu3, Sirio Belli4
1Observatories, Carnegie Institution for Science, Pasadena, CA, USA.
Abstract:
Supermassive black holes and their host galaxies grow together over time, producing correlations between the black hole mass and various galaxy properties. Determining the evolution of these correlations requires precise measurements of the masses of distant black holes. We observed the gravitationally lensed quiescent galaxy MRG-M0138 at redshift 1.95 using James Webb Space Telescope integral field spectroscopy to spatially resolve the kinematics of stars within the black hole's sphere of influence. By using a foreground lens model and fitting stellar dynamical models, we determined the mass of its inactive black hole to be [Formula: see text] solar masses. Comparing this measurement to local galaxies, we found that [Formula: see text] is higher than expected given the galaxy's bulge mass but consistent with the correlation of [Formula: see text] with stellar velocity dispersion.
Related Concept Videos
Detection of Black Holes
Their closest cousins are neutron stars, which are composed almost entirely of neutrons packed against each other, making them extremely dense. A neutron star has the same mass as the Sun but its diameter is only a few kilometers. Therefore, the escape velocity from their surface is close to the speed of light.
Not until the 1960s, when the first neutron...
Schwarzschild Radius and Event Horizon
The minimum speed required to launch a projectile from the surface of an object to which it is gravitationally bound so that it eventually escapes the object’s gravitational field is called the escape velocity. The escape velocity is independent of the mass of the object. Merging the idea of escape velocity with the...
Reduced Mass Coordinates: Isolated Two-body Problem
Conservation of Angular Momentum: Application
Gravitation Between Spherically Symmetric Masses
Space-Time Curvature and the General Theory of Relativity
This has been verified in many experiments. However, space and time are no longer absolute. Two observers moving relative to one another do not agree on the length of objects or the passage of time. The mechanics of objects based on Newton's laws of motion,...

